Dedham author's message: 'be yourself'

Wednesday

Mar 29, 2017 at 3:11 PMMar 29, 2017 at 3:24 PM

Author and illustrator Peter H. Reynolds' newest picture book is called "Happy Dreamer."

By Ed Symkus/For The Patriot Ledger

Turn to just about any page in “Happy Dreamer,” the newest picture book by Dedham resident Peter H. Reynolds. You’ll find a zippy drawing of a young, spirited, nameless, shoeless lad who, via some brief yet surprisingly pithy text, is thinking aloud about himself and the world. Like so many previous books by Reynolds, this one delivers a message, and it’s not necessarily just for kids. Reynolds said he fully believes that adults will understand and appreciate the ideas he’s presenting.

His book “The Dot” hinted that readers should express themselves. “Playing from the Heart” suggested that they look inside themselves. “Happy Dreamer” is even more to the point. It practically screams out to “be yourself.” Reynolds will read the book, tell some behind-the-scenes stories of how it came about, and answer questions at a book launch party on April 1 at Blue Bunny Books & Toys, the shop in Dedham Square that he’s has owned for 15 years.

Reynolds has been a doodler for as long as he can remember, and an avid reader – early on were Scrooge McDuck and Richie Rich comic books, the usual assigned books in school, a dip into the Hardy Boys catalogue, then the discovery of Ray Bradbury. He and his twin brother Paul were also rapt by their older sister Jane, who would read Shakespeare and Dickens out loud to them.

Sitting in his airy, pleasantly cluttered second floor studio, just across the street from Blue Bunny, Reynolds, a boyish-looking 55, recalled the magic he felt when he read Roald Dahl’s “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.”

“As a kid, I loved that book,” he said. “It was kind of Dickensian. It was the first time where when I got to the end of the book, my instinct was to start it over again.” But before Reynolds became an illustrator-writer, he concentrated on his visual skills.

“When I was growing up in Chelmsford, if I saw a pencil and a piece of paper I knew what to do with it,” he said. “I drew everything, but one that sticks out is a horse. I was around 6 or 7, and that was the first time I was drawing something that I didn’t know how to draw. I was doodling and drawing people, and I always saw people, but I didn’t have a horse. This was way before Google Images so I had to hunt for picture of horses. My sister Jane was a good artist and gave me a few pointers, but I can’t recall anyone saying, ‘Wow, this kid is on to something’ till the ninth grade, when a teacher asked me to illustrate a literary magazine and then asked me to do the cover. I remember her sort of lighting up when she saw it.”

Though he’s kept quite busy as an illustrator for a number of years – he’s been contributing all of the drawings for Megan McDonald’s popular “Judy Moody” series from the start – he’s also diligently been writing and drawing his own work.

“A lot of my stories come out of notes I’ve made in my [written and illustrated] journals,” he said. “Sometimes I’ll write a little caption in there, too, and that can be just enough to spark me to thinking, ‘OK, that’s a really compelling idea for a story.’ ” That’s where “Happy Dreamer” came from.

“I’d long been interested with what it means to be an original,” he said. “Anything to do with differences. There was a Learning Differences conference at Harvard that I attended about 15 years ago. Among the speakers were the CEO of JetBlue and Bob Lobel. They were describing their school experiences and what it was like. School was a challenge but they all knew what they wanted to do and they had to power through things to get there. I resonated with a lot of that. At the end of it, one of the people running it noted that all of the speakers had described symptoms of ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). I wondered if, had I been diagnosed, I might have been labeled ADHD. But I thought that sounded kind of cold and clinical. I wanted to make it a good thing. I wrote out the letters A D H D, and I thought, ‘A, D ... amazing, delightful.’ Then I thought, ‘happy, dreamer.’ So I went home, picked up my journal, and wrote a little poem in it. I looked through it one day, saw that poem, and thought that’s a book, and it needs to be out there.”

Reynolds actually began work on the book about three years ago, using the journal entry as a starting point, then rewriting it and reshaping it.

“I told my editor that the book was a peek inside my head, that it was my story, it was me as a kid,” he said. “I knew there was a lot of cool stuff going on in my head and that some teachers saw it. It wasn’t always easy but I always bounced back. I survived. I thought that would be a good message to send to kids who have zig-zaggy brains, like me, and a good message to kids who are good at following all the rules and directions, but who don’t get to stay outside of the box. I think the kids who are good at following directions should also be challenged to be original thinkers, to be gentle rebels.

“My work is whimsical and playful,” he added. “But if you look under the hood, I’m trying to do my part to get people thinking and talking and having discussions about working at being better human beings – being more compassionate, more generous.”

The book launch party for “Happy Dreamer” is at Blue Bunny Books & Toys, 577 High St., Dedham from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Saturday, April 1. It’s free and open to the public. For more information, call 781-493-6568.